Confessions of a displaced, pre-1968 Democrat.

12/27/2013

Quo Vadis, Blue Dog Reaganite?

The Blue Dog Reaganite blog was founded back in 2009, and it’s gone through a couple distinct movements, the first of which ended in early 2010 when Republican senatorial candidate Scott Brown won a special election to fill the seat of the late Teddy Kennedy in Massachusetts.

The blog took a break that ended up lasting until early 2012, I ended up doing some blogging in that election year for a conservative Catholic organization, and came back here in the spring of 2013. Another break is ahead.

I write this blog to sort out my conflicted thoughts on the current political landscape, where a voter like me, economically populist and socially traditional, has been left out in the cold. Because of my conviction that rights of the unborn trump all other considerations, I vote Republican.

But there’s a big difference between voting Republican—or even conservative—and being either of the above. I’ve long known that I’m not the former, and I’m starting to accept the realization that I might not even be the latter.

A post written on November 13 was a seminal point of the last year, and it was called “The Blue Pool In A Patch Of Red”, where I discussed my Democratic leanings on economic issues. With each post I wrote on these topics, I began to see that it wasn’t just a stray issue here or there where I had some blue in me. There was a definite package of issues, all significant, where my views are far more in the framework of the Democratic Party—even today’s Democratic Party-- than of the GOP.

But the political left wing that finances the party and provides its ground troops has grown increasingly intolerant on topics ranging from abortion to same-sex marriage to religious liberty itself, and there is no way one can form a long-term alliance with them.

I learned this the hard way over a year and a half ago when making an attempt to olive-branch to a liberal activist after a political fight had been picked with me. Olive-branching doesn’t work with people who think they’re ceaselessly correct every time they open their mouth, and to borrow the words of Taylor Swift “We Are Never Getting Back Together.”

Today’s political world may be owned the Daily Kos rackets on the left, the Ayn Rand worshippers on the right with the corporate world bankrolling both parties above them, but I refuse to believe that those of us who still believe in the adage “To thine own self be true,” have only two choices, those being in fall in line or leave the arena.

But let’s think of the arena as a big domed stadium hosting a basketball tournament. There’s one main court in the middle that the TV cameras are focused on, and that’s drawing the biggest crowds. That arena in politics is today’s presidential races and the bulk of the Senate and House campaigns. We may need to leave that arena, and go to a smaller one, where longer-term cultural topics are being discussed and the seeds for a longer-term success are being planted.

The secular left-wing movements, notably militant gay activism, went to the smaller arenas and played their way onto the big stage. We may need to follow suit, of focusing on big-picture questions, getting active in only select political campaigns and draw clear distinctions on whom we give our votes to and whom we give our loyalty and time to.

To make this more specific to the cause of Blue Dog Reaganite, which speaks to the heritage of ethnic Catholics of European lineage, I believe we need to find common cause with African-Americans, Hispanics and other immigrant communities. There are a lot of us who believe in the fusion of economic populism and social traditionalism, but race is effectively used as a wedge issue by the elites of both parties to keep us separate.

One part of this is acknowledging where the heritage of Blue Dog Reaganite has had an unhealthy racial dynamic and it was that topic that drove my recent post on Washington Redskins quarterback, the African-American Robert Griffin III and how he is perceived by the national media, particularly as it relates to his Irish Catholic head coach, Mike Shanahan.

It was a small topic and not one of national consequence, but as I pointed out in this post, cultural change is ultimately driven by all of us making healthy decisions on a lot of small topics.

So where do we go from here, and how long is Blue Dog Reaganite’s next break? I don’t know. I’ll likely start delving more into history, even more so than I have already. One of my regrets from my college years—other than the massive amounts of beer I drank—is that I didn’t major in history, and instead chose political science.

Our political movement needs to take a long view, and the grounding in history will surely help. As to when I’ll be back, I’m not sure. I also would like to write a series of novels dealing with the ethnic Catholic experience in America. In the meantime, the posts written here pretty much cover most issues on the landscape and are all still relevant.

If I don’t see you before then, everyone have a happy and blessed 2014. And if you like sports, I write TheSportsNotebook.com website that covers them all, and there’s no break coming there.